“Bula!” from Fiji (from Jan.7)

“Bula” is their greeting, like “Hello.” But they also seem to use it often as an exclamation. Like, if you have accomplished something or you are having a good time, you might blurt out “Bula!” enthusiastically and indiscriminately.

While clearing customs and immigration we noticed three young Mormon missionaries from Canada in their new dark suits. I wonder if they are aware of the history of cannibalism of missionaries in this country? After meeting up with our tour company, we had a one hour bus ride to our resort. It was before 7 AM and they didn’t have a room for us yet, so they sent us for a buffet breakfast. We finally got to our room about 8 AM. I don’t know if you have been counting, and I am not sure I can do the math, but we were traveling for about 29.5 hours from home to getting settled in our room.

The room is quite large and very nice. It features a large walk in shower with another large private walk out shower with tub off the bathroom. There is no ceiling, so it is open to the stars at night. Kind of cool. It was strewn with about a dozen fresh picked Hibiscus flowers when we checked in.

We weren’t too tired, having slept on the plane, so we explored our resort a

bit. It is very nice. I
will post some pictures, if I can. They say they have an Internet connection, but it is pretty slow. There was a heavy rain while we were on the bus and a couple more during the day, but the sun always came out afterward and it was otherwise a pretty nice day. Very warm and humid. Takes some getting used to – especially for Celeste!

Although we weren’t too sleepy when we got here, we crashed for an hour after lunch. We went in the pool for awhile, elbowed some little kids out of the way to use the waterslide, and explored the resort. We had an excellent supper (They have a Canadian Executive Chef), and made an early night of it.